Thierry Loa is an interdisciplinary audiovisual and media artist based in Canada, and the creator of 20-22, a feature-length experimental non-verbal documentary film in black and white, showcasing “the humans of the Anthropocene” – that is, the first generation to truly experience the planet’s sixth mass extinction. Loa is currently filming 21-22, a VR-based sequel, delivering 360° aerial views showcasing “the planet of the Anthropocene.”
Joshua Synenko: I’m here at Montréal’s Club Insiders with the filmmaker and media artist Thierry Loa. My questions for you are divided between 20-22, your completed project, and 21-22, the project that’s underway. I have more questions about the former, but I’m also curious about the relationship between the two. Maybe you could begin by describing 20-22 for those who are unfamiliar – in your own words, describe what the film is about, and we can go from there.
Thierry Loa: 20-22 is a project that looks at the humans of the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene, which more and more people have become familiar with, that term, is the new epoch in which we live. It is characterized by the human presence, and dominance of the planet, to the point where human activities are having a large impact – a global, geological impact – on the planet. Climate change is one of them. So, this film, 20-22, which is a feature, gives a profound look at the humans, the first agents of the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene is going to last thousands of years, and who knows, in 500 years, in 100 years, it could turn out to be very positive, that human influence is very positive in the sense that we understand what we’re doing, how to rectify things, to improve things, etc. Right now, it’s more in the negative, I would say. What this film does is study the human side. It was shot on black and white celluloid film using a Bolex camera. Why did I take this approach and this aesthetic? It’s because I wanted to reprise the cinematic form and language of the symphony films of the 1920s. Interestingly enough, I told myself that any form of classical filmmaking has disappeared today. When you look at music, people are still making classical music, and we call it contemporary classical music. But with cinema we kind of forgot or abandoned this whole genre, this classical form of cinema, the early forms of cinema. I thought it would be interesting, thematically and aesthetically, to adopt, reprise, that cinematic form. If my topic is preoccupied by things that are going extinct – because the Anthropocene implies the extinction, the mass extinction, that’s happening right now. We are facing the sixth mass extinction, and it’s largely led, and produced by human activities. Normally this would happen naturally, in a cyclical manner, but humans are accelerating that. Given that, I thought if I used a medium that’s going extinct, to capture this world, it will be an interesting comment – “the medium is the message,” as Marshall McLuhan would say.
Joshua Synenko: The title is a reference to the early cinema of the 1920s? Does the number “20-22” also reflect a specific date, or does it merely refer to the neutrality and arbitrariness of number? What about the hyphens?
Thierry Loa: 20-22 the title, came from, was inspired from another film, called 21-87 by Arthur Lipsett, a Canadian filmmaker, who did many avant-garde shorts in the 1960s, and also in the 1970s. His films inspired Stanley Kubrick and George Lucas. Because the project is non-verbal, I thought how can I have a title that’s not too suggestive? If I call it “Apple,” if I call it “Anthropocene,” if I call it “Post-humanism,” it’s a little bit too on the nose, in my opinion. I wanted a title that would leave room for the imagination, just like a picture or an image can do. An image of an apple can be abstract, it can mean temptation, it can mean fruit, it can mean health. It can also mean apple, you know, the actual apple, Apple products, and so on. I thought numbers are fantastic for that reason. And I asked what numbers, and I came across 21-87, by Lipsett, and I thought I’m going to pay homage to him by adopting a similar title format.
Besides making a reference to 21-87 by using a rather similar title format (two digits – hyphen – two digits), the digits of 20-22 definitely hold their own meaning and can be read as calendar date, serial numbers, measurement value, etc…In the end, I encourage people to come up with their own interpretation, to process the “information,” and there isn’t only one meaning but multiple as all my decision making for this film has been as such.
Joshua Synenko: Could we talk just for a few moments about the symphony film genre? Are there any specific films within that tradition that you were inspired by, or how would you understand your relationship to it more specifically, I guess, in connection with the Anthropocene? When I think of the symphony films, I think of celebrations – celebrations of modernity, technology, the rise of the modern city together with new technologies of recording, and I think about the priority of editing and the transformative potential that’s offered by that…
Thierry Loa: By reprising that language and that technique as much as possible, from that time. I also was also kind of by flipping it on its head, if I can say. It’s a very postmodern thing, in a way, to do. This film, 20-22, is a very postmodern product, because it’s taking different influences from the past, but remixing to make something new, with a twist. Like you said, the city symphonies of the 1920s were celebrating the modern times, its productivity, with a message that it’s going to improve people’s lives, the transportation aspect, etc., and also exploring different techniques. Cinema was emerging at that time, it was coming from the era of the early forms. The city symphonies were among the earliest films that were trying to create a narrative through the poetic use of imagery, as well as music, sound. So, it was all very promising: the subject being studied, and the medium. And now I thought, 100 years later, we jump ahead, in the future, the 21st century. What has happened to the promises of the modern times? We all know all the positive and the negative that came out of the modern times, and now we’re in the postmodern times, heading into a new era, which we don’t know yet, that’s why “post” is being used. We don’t know what the new term will be. I wanted to capture that, reprise that language while at the same time create something new. I’m not necessarily celebrating modernity. But certainly there is a fascination. That’s how the Montréal International Documentary Festival [Rencontres Internationales du Documentaire de Montréal – RIDM] described it. There is a certain fascination by the way the film looks at that world. Certainly, there is a critical element, but not in the sense of judging, necessarily. My goal was to show the facts, that people come up with their own conclusion, without implying “this is bad, this is good.” We can all decide for ourselves. My job was really to document this wide and diverse range of human activities, locations, environments, all within the human-centric world. 20-22 is entirely shot inside, indoors, there is no outdoor footage, so it’s very concentrated on the human-centric world, the anthropocenic world.
So 20-22 is shot on celluloid, black and white. One of the reasons that I chose black and white celluloid is that it is the DNA of the cinematic city symphonies from the 1920s, and I wanted to reprise that technique. But I also chose black and white for another reason. People said “it would be way more beautiful if it was in colour,” but I wanted to create a filter; that is, by removing the colours from the imagery we’re seeing, it’s almost like I’m removing information, because we’re used to experiencing the world in colour. I leave room for the spectator to use their imagination. At the same time, black and white harmonizes all the faces and places that I’m showing. That was my thinking. In a way, instead of trying to create an image that is “sexy,” I’m trying to remove all the sexiness – I’m not sure if that’s the right term, but – the colours, you know, that appeals to us. Because colours in modern times are used in a very strategic ways to manipulate us. Take for example McDonald’s, you know, marketing, the red and yellow are known to excite, to appeal to our hunger. By removing all those elements, we are seeing something quite neutral. Many photographers might agree with me that black and white photography leaves a lot of room for the imagination, and also the theme of nostalgia. When people saw it, they thought, is that archival, is that imagery from the past, or is that recent? In a way, I’m playing with the time-image juxtaposition.
Joshua Synenko: In this anthropocenic world, would you say that we can still be avant-garde? Can we still push the envelope of our own artistic practices to create something new?
Thierry Loa: That I would say I’m doing with 21-22, the sequel project, where I’m adopting VR –
a new medium, a new filmmaking medium, or technology – to pursue my research, my work. I feel that in the 21st century with VR, we are at the same point that we were 100 years ago with motion picture cameras. It existing, but not everyone knew where it was heading. People were experimenting with it. People were starting to make very coherent narrative work. There was a certain excitement without knowing where that could go. VR today, that’s where it’s at, and there is more freedom, say – I don’t like to use the word “innovative,” because we hear about that a lot. But there’s more freedom in VR, today, to be able to do exploration, to explore.
Joshua Synenko: So, you’re an explorer?
Thierry Loa: I’m not attached to any medium. Some people, after I finished 20-22, some people thought – actually it was quite funny – because when they went to film festivals, and did some interviews, they expected to see someone in their 50s or 60s, someone who just loved film, wearing black leather, you know. But they were quite surprised. That is to say I’m not attached to any medium. I work in digital, also. It’s whatever fits best, the project, the language, that I’m trying to express. To come back to the anthropocenic world, in 20-22, can we still be avant-garde, I mean I don’t think I can answer that. But I can answer that by saying, what I tried to do with 20-22, is to revive or reprise, this classical, or, say, ancient – it’s not so long ago, cinema, but – you know, to give a love letter to this classical form of cinema. But at the same time, I want to get us to rediscover that type of cinema, which we don’t see much today. There’s nothing of that sort being done today. So, it’s a love letter, but at the same time, I wanted to make people rediscover the potential of that cinema.
Joshua Synenko: I want to ask again about your views on the Anthropocene, but this time in relation to the subjects that you have chosen to record. Do you have a sense of ethical responsibility in documenting the Anthropocene? Do you have a sense that, as a filmmaker, you ought to be politically tasked, or are you simply trying to show, to visualize what’s going on so that people can make their own decisions?
Thierry Loa: When I started the project, 20-22, the word “Anthropocene” was around in the academic world, but it wasn’t approved at all. The scientists, they were still debating, and me, I wasn’t even aware of the term. It was during production that I discovered it. During that time, I was thinking more of post-humanism, and I was reading a lot from Guy Debord’s Society of the Spectacle, which had a big influence on me and the project. When I discovered the term “Anthropocene,” it kind of enveloped, or regrouped everything that I had in mind. But 20-22 also looks at the humans of the Anthropocene, because when we think of the Anthropocene we think of spaces, geological spaces. But Anthropocene also describes an era, an epoch. And so, my preoccupation with this film was to ask who are the actors, who are the protagonists of that era? Is there a political – I mean when I choose a project I choose one that I’m very passionate about, because in all likelihood it’s going to last 2 to 3 or more years of my life, so I better be passionate about this project, personally and professionally. But it’s almost a discovery for myself. Shooting this film was an amazing and tough experience, because to have access to all those locations, it took a long time and patience, and dedication. In the end it was all a success and I’m very happy.
Joshua Synenko: I have a couple more questions about the practical side of making the film, and then we can move into 21-22. How did you choose your sites? You mentioned you’re going to California next week to do some recording there. But what was the process that led you to film the New York subway scene, for example?
Thierry Loa: How I conceived 20-22 was, I thought, how would it be if I were to write a thesis, if I were to write it out on paper? And I kind of did that. I did so much research during production – reading a lot of articles, watching documentaries, looking at photography, even music, to some extent, inspired me. Well – for the production of the soundtrack I had to study the history of music, in a way. I wrote down on paper all the themes that I wanted, and then from the themes, what locations do I need to express and support that. Then I had my list of locations. And based on the research, I would say which location and where they are, what’s available, and then what’s the largest, the most visually arresting, you know, that would express it all. Because it’s a very visual film. So that’s how I came about to deciding the locations. And when time came to editing, how to put all of that into a coherent sequence – because it’s not a random series of imagery, by no means – I told myself if I had to write a thesis, how would it be? Cinema is like a written language – you have your comma, your ideas, your subject, your verb. I kind of see cinema the same way. When you’re editing a movie, you’re telling a story, and when you decide to put a close up here, an insert there, you can almost transcribe that into a written form. It’s like when people adapt a book into a movie. It’s the same thing, just the other way around. I went through this process of imagining the film in a written form and I wrote a draft of it, so that helped.
Joshua Synenko: How did you manage questions of representation? Because you said you’re very focused on humans, on people, and thinking about the way people inhabit – not necessarily places, but sites, industrial spaces, that sort of thing. But spaces are also coded – white spaces, brown spaces, black spaces, for example. I’m just curious about thinking of issues around race and gender in connection with the people you’re recording, and whether you paid any mind into that. Did you think about that in terms of your choices?
Thierry Loa: Right, well to begin with, 20-22 was shot in North America – Canada and the U.S. only. I decided that it would be only this region because the sequel project will be exploring other regions of the world. When I mention the first inhabitants, the first agents of the Anthropocene, I mean we have to remember – the Anthropocene started with, say, capitalism, which goes beyond just being an economical model, it’s almost a philosophy. It started more as a philosophy, actually, and so I asked who are the early adopters of that? You could say British and the U.K. Yeah, but after the World Wars, who really were the champions of it? I think most of us will agree it’s North America. So, I thought this film, which is looking at the past, documenting the present, and commenting on the future, should be mostly filmed in North America. And so, all the places I went to, I just captured the people who were there. In the Metro of New York, certainly you see the diversity of people, all colours and shapes, but it’s in black and white, so you focus more on the form, the shapes. When you move on from other locations, you look at who are the people there, who are occupying the spaces, and operating in those spaces. I took a very, kind of, scientific approach, you know, hopefully without any bias. The main character was the location, and then the people who inhabit it would be in the picture.
Joshua Synenko: I’m going to ask you a question about your older work. Back when I spoke with you last, which was over 10 years ago, you were engaged in a photo project, FACES. I remember that project, I thought it was great, but now it seems there might be some connection with 20-22?
Thierry Loa: FACES – yes, I called it an “ethnographic-photographic project.” I did a few series of it: I did one in Toronto, one in Tokyo, one in New York…I started one in London, haven’t finished it yet, and one in Singapore. My task was to document human faces in public spaces, where I’m photographing their faces. This is a countermovement to advertising, where the face is so controlled – the face, the expression – they know how to engage you with massive faces on billboards, on computer screens. I thought, what if I removed all that artificiality, if I can capture human expression in the most genuine possible way, in the moment, because human expression is always changing, never the same. Daily we age, slowly, our expression changes, so there’s never really the same face, ever. This project was good training for me, in a way. Because when I filmed the sequence of human faces for 20-22, having done the series on FACES, that trained me to look for those moments, human emotion, how to frame it, and how to work with people too. Because the thing is that most people were not aware that I was filming them, but eventually they do realize. There’s a way to work where you become part of the environment. It’s almost like when a photographer goes into the safari to take picture of the lion. People will ask, how did you get so close to the animal? At a certain point, the animal becomes comfortable with the idea of you being there, looking at the them, and they feel that you are not a threat. Humans are animals.
21-22
Joshua Synenko: So maybe we can move on to the next project, 21-22, which, as I understand it, is still underway. It’s sequel film to 20-22, but it’s also very different. It’s shot in digital, in colour, and with a 360 camera. I guess my first question – which you started to answer earlier – is about media specificity. Why VR?
Thierry Loa: I find VR so exciting and liberating. It brings so many new possibilities. People are exploring the potential of it. Some are doubtful, some very optimistic. I’m a believer of it. I believe we are at the first phase of it. It’s only going to get better: the quality, the helmets are going to get lighter, better screen quality. Why I chose to use VR in this project is sort of to make an absolute change from the earlier project. 20-22 used the old medium of cinema, evoking the 1920s, and now, 100 years later, boom, what do we have as an emerging image technology? VR. You could say AR as well. But for this one I’m using virtual reality, 360 video. Coming back to McLuhan, by choosing that medium, it’s a message on its own, I’m embracing something new, and almost detaching from everything in the past, whereas 20-22 was focused exclusively on the past, here I’m looking toward the future. 360 video, full colour, aerial – that’s another thing, too – the entire film is in the air. That’s not necessarily something we could do 100 years ago.
Mini-trailer for 21-22: https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=456417331767245
Joshua Synenko: When I think of VR, as most people might do, I think of gaming, or stuff that’s interactive. It’s not necessarily a format that accommodates the spectator. There are many different approaches to VR. For example, when people talk about VR they often talk about its commercialization, or its viability in a commercial market. I guess one way to approach this would be to ask what about the audience experience of this film compared to 20-22? Because VR is also by and large an individual experience, not necessarily a cinematic experience in the sense of being in a collective space. Have you thought much about that?
Thierry Loa: Very much so. It was intentional to use that medium to make the drastic departure from what we know as cinema. 20-22 really was made for a theatre or theatrical experience, which we are all familiar with. This experience format is obviously going through a lot of changes with streaming video, and so on. People are asking about the future of film theatres. I could have filmed using 6k, HD colour, HDR, and I thought, well that’s been done. What if I adopt something that’s emerging? For me I find that very exciting, to enter this unexplored territory. Using this medium is not just a technological gadget. This technology allows me to gain a new perspective on the planet. This is especially useful give that I’m dealing with the Anthropocene. 20-22 was filmed on the ground. Here, I’m in the air, I want to change the human perspective. It will be an eye-opening journey across the planet. It’s aerial – yes, aerial has been done. But it’s 360. In the sense you are giving them a transcendental experience of the planet. Again, it’s non-verbal.
Joshua Synenko: At the same time, sound plays a very important role in the earlier film; I think I read that you had two choirs? What’s the sound going to be in 21-22?
Thierry Loa: 20-22 was modern classic, and I even had Sanskrit song for it, and throat singing to mix with the classical music. It was quite postmodern. All of those choices were intentional. The songs had lyrics, they were telling a story. In 21-22, the songs will be influenced by the regions we’re in. Since I’ll be filming in different parts of the world. In Asia, I’ll be using music from that region. In Africa, I will be using music influenced from that region. Places in India will also be the same – I can’t remember the name, but that famous style of drumming from India will be in the soundtrack. So it will be quite a multicultural experience, musically. I will also be mixing it with electronic music, synth – sometimes the synth can sound like organ, and vice versa, so I find it interesting to mix it up, to create a friction between the different styles, a combination.
Joshua Synenko: When I think of the aerial view that you are engaging in this project, I’m reminded of the Edward Burtynsky exhibit that was recently at the AGO [Art Gallery of Ontario], and showed at other places, and how aesthetically beautiful those images are, you know, how saturated they are with colour, how beautiful they are as art objects, and whether or not there is a sense that the message that Burtynsky is trying to convey gets lost in this process of aestheticization. From what I’ve seen, 21-22 is a very beautiful film. I’m also reminded of aerial photography and its history. I’m thinking of Caren Kaplan’s recent book, Aerial Aftermaths, in which she writes about WWI surveillance missions. She describes how air forces would go up and take a lot of pictures, and then come down to quickly process them and determine the enemy’s position. I guess her point was that this new application of image recording technology signalled a dramatic multiplication of photographic images. I guess VR is an extension of that, or participates in that in some ways?
Thierry Loa: What’s unique about VR, what other technology has tried and hasn’t been totally successful in doing, is addressing the notion of presence. Cinema has not died. It’s evolving. Cinema has always tried to immerse the spectator into other worlds. With the brothers Lumière, you know, people thought that train on the screen was going to crash into them. Back then it was so powerful and new. Now we all know how films are done, the tricks, the CGI. VR now is the new illusion. IMAX has been trying to do this – and IMAX is great, you know, if the room is properly set up for it. But when you see VR, especially in stereoscopic VR, 360 video, it’s quite mind blowing because you really have a sense of presence, that you are there, physically, and it can be – sometimes traumatizing – but it can also be quite compelling.
Joshua Synenko: But the question of ethics must also be raised. Think of all the literature that came out a few years ago on drone warfare, on the question of how to deal with abstraction. Of course I’m reminded of Omar Fast’s short film, 5000 Feet is Best, and others that basically critique aerial images, because you don’t actually see the atrocity that is perpetrated by drone warfare, for example. And that leads to an imperative for artists in terms of devising ways of representing that atrocity, or how to defamiliarize or unsettle the abstraction of aerial imagery, to create an emotional response. Do you have any thoughts about that?
Thierry Loa: When you go aerial, the perspective I’m trying to give is almost a bird’s-eye-view, even a god’s-eye-view, a sense of omnipresence, I’m traversing the planet without any boundaries, going from place A to B to C, to get a sense of the zeitgeist, or what’s going on in the planet. The main character in 21-22 is not necessarily the humans, not necessarily a human-centric look, it’s more of a geological look at the planet. I’m preoccupied more by the spaces, the state of the planet, the nature that comes with it, and humans are there, and we can see the dominant presence of human civilization.
Thierry Loa is a Montreal-based media artist. Working in various visual and media disciplines, Loa has produced a diverse and mixed array of projects such as video installations, narrative films, interactive cinema, new media designs, and photography. Conducting both commissioned and self-produced projects, and being interdisciplinary, Thierry shares his time between filmmaking, photography, interactive design, reading, writing, drawing and traveling.
Joshua Synenko is Assistant Professor of Cultural Studies, and Coordinator of Media Studies, at Trent University (Canada). His research explores technologies of mobility, migration, collective memory, visual culture, and space.
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